My thoughts on mobile, social media, upcoming trends..

Tag Archives: facebook

This afternoon, I was discussing the rumors of Whatsapp being acquired by Google ( now debunked ) for 1 Billion Dollars, when a strange thought crept into my mind: Are mobile messaging apps the new social network? Could they eventually lead to the demise of facebook? Is that why Google and Facebook are both desperately trying to acquire them? It might sound like a completely absurd thought, given how big and mighty Facebook is today. However, do not discount the pace of change in the online…

There is a general rule of the technology world that I swear by: “Any open standard will sooner or later replace a closed standard”. The best example of this phenomenon, in the past couple of years, is demonstrated by the manner in which browser based applications have replaced almost all commonly used installed applications ( with a few notable exceptions, where there are obvious advantage to an installed application, like increased productivity in case of office apps, better use of hardware in case of intensive…

A few days ago, I was walking around in Gurgaon when I noticed the poster above. Take a closer look – do you see anything peculiar about it? Notice the bright red patch below the name of the hypermarket, telling you how to pronounce the name? Well, that is what the choice of a bad name can do to you! As I was thinking about it, here are some thoughts that came to my mind about how not to name your company: If it’s not…

Two days ago, Mashable reported that facebook is testing out a new feature called “Related Photos”. Read their coverage here: http://mashable.com/2010/05/28/facebook-related-photos/. With this supposed innovation, facebook will now start showing other photos of people who are face-tagged in a photo next to it. The application feature addition is designed to drive users to explore additional photos that may be of interest based on the photo they’re currently viewing, thereby further personalizing the experience (and increasing page views). Just to set the record straight, we have…

Last week, we launched a couple of new features related to photo discovery on lifeblob and I decided to run a campaign on facebook to drive some traffic and see how people are responding to the new stuff. Today, I looked at the reports and I was shocked to see the rampant click-fraud going on in facebook. And based on what I hear from others who have run similar campaigns, facebook seems to be least bothered about putting any checks on it. Here is a…

Yesterday, I was discussing a simple feature with Vishwas when the discussion veered towards the very subjective domain of usability. After spending almost an hour in the discussion, I thought to myself if there is a way to think about usability when implementing a feature. Let me put things in perspective here. The feature being discussed was “The ability to allow a user to select a facebook photo or upload a photo in our facebook lifeblob application ?” Vishwas already had a gallery like view…